Oblivion
by Willowfly
Summary: After a strange encounter with the Foot Clan's newest weapon, the turtles soon discover that poison is the least of their worries. When a brother goes missing, a terrifying new destiny is awakened. In their blood lies the key to the world's untimely end.
1. Chapter 1: Heat

Oblivion

BY Willowfly

Chapter 1: Heat

The wind of restless midnight air caressed flesh and burning muscle beneath the eyes of a twilight half moon sky. Four shadows clung like wraiths to the dark, eerie and somber as the night that gave them birth. The night was their refuge, the essence of their soul.

Leonardo could feel it in his bones, that fragile, invigorating kiss of cool night air after the uncomfortable heat of a long summer's day. It was like finally breathing after holding it for far too long. The July heat could do that to you sometimes, and the familiar dripping dank humidity of the sewers at midday still clung to him like a disease. It was days like those that no matter what he did, he couldn't purge the smell of sewage from his skin.

But midnight was the cure.

Summer was a restless time, each of them tethered below ground as the heat waves topped the charts and broke the long-held records as the baking sun grew ever more brutal. Dark-skinned children played in the rippling mist of hydrant waterfalls pooling like oasis in the streets.

The temperature ha d climbed to one hundred and two that day, and as night broke the heat like fever dreams, the city became restless.

In the long-thirsted cool, no sleep came to weary eyes those nights. The air was thick with unbridled energy, pounding adrenaline, youth, vigor, life.

Chill night wind kissed and mingled with the sweat forming on the nape of his neck, sending blissful tingles down his spine as it swept along his bandana tails. They frolicked with the wind and caressed his shoulders, slightly damp with sweat and midnight as he looked into the west.

The stars lay hidden there, only moonlight showed the way.

Raphael let out a breath as he stopped to catch his breath, panting and thinking longingly of early winter, memories of watching his breath curl silvery into the darkness and the misty sky. The summer was much more foreboding, so filled with coursing, hot-blood energy, he could feel it on his fingertips, taste it on his tongue. It tasted salty like sweat, like drugs and violence and copper blood, like the silver cast of moonbeams that beckoned things with fragile wings drawn into the light.

Summer was like those old lights hung above old hole-in-the-wall taverns, swarming with bugs of all kinds, drawn into their fate and captured, left to die by their own desires, the corpses of their predecessors reminding them of later years.

Now the summer, that fed the mind like adrenaline. His muscles ached for more.

He pushed himself further, faster, harder. The training run was supposed to be more of a breath of fresh air than practice. Even Leo had said so. The humidity was making even Mikey irritable in during the day beneath the dripping heat of the underground, but he didn't care. The cool wind recharged him. He hungered for the push.

As they ran, silence… four, united in well practiced harmony, the rhythm like a lullaby they knew so well. The last touch of a building's concrete ledge, and then the leap, that breathless moment of heavy air, so slow it curled and thickened, turned the dark to underwater, carried them away until reality struck back to tangibility. The feel of rough tar and shingles, the feel of another cracked and broken ledge before the plunge, the lights of skyscrapers flashing like a million eyeless stars.

Run, jump, leap, feel… hang, death, air, salvation.

It was a mantra, their only fleeting prayer: freedom. Air, and freedom.

The dark made it possible, the shadows were their only allies in the city of smog and hate and fire. But it was those same shadows that betrayed them.

Don had been running not far behind Leo when he stopped suddenly in his tracks, muscles tense, drawn and ready. His eyes… fierce, cool like an autumn night, hot as all those unblinking stars.

And he knew…

They were not alone.

Wordlessly, they froze and drew their weapons, stared into the hollow night. Watched.

"What is it?" Don whispered breathlessly. But Leo didn't answer. He didn't have to.

Donatello's heart beat in his throat and Mikey let out a soft, nervous whimper behind the spin of his nunchaku. Raphael tightened his grip on his weapons, so hungry, so desperately ravenous for the taste of human flesh.

He needed this.

It happened like a sudden snowfall, eerie in the stunning silence, wordless, deafening quiet. The ninja poured down from the upper rooftops like runoff down a mountainside, flowing like blood-stained water from the deepest bowels of the darkest hell. Leonardo followed them with his eyes, traced their shapes as they approached, katana silver by the light of a paper moon.

None of this was real. None of this was truth. They weren't human, they were demons hemorrhaging from a wound torn in the night. The ninja, dark clothed and faceless, came to obey the orders of their master, or die if they would fail.

But they were ready.

Weapons clashed like a great exhale, the epic collide of birthing stars, of planets aligned. Meteors fell that night, forgetting the heat of the sun.

The stars… they could make their own heat as it all erupted in the night.

Raphael took the first attack head on, sai crossed in an imposing x, teeth bared like something feral, something just as demonic as those blackened wraiths. One, it bore a manriki chain clutched in its dark hand.

He imagined if it wasn't faceless, it would be grinning its silent challenge.

_Bring it on._

A flash of metal and he dodged left, felt the air of it slicing past his side like a dooming breeze. With a feral flash of teeth, he dared it to strike again.

Quickly, Don and Mike were surrounded, circling slowly, shells dully scraping back to back, weapons at the ready as the demons and their flashing tanto blades closed slowly in.

Don figured there had to be ten or more, at least ten… but definitely more. It was hard for him to count when his enemy could become the dark. These _things_… these faceless, soulless creatures that called themselves Foot and ninja, they were just as kin to the shadows as he had come to be, maybe even more so.

Sometimes, it was frightening. He'd seen them crawling up the walls of his nightmares like hell-born spiders.

But he couldn't think of that now. The sound of metal cutting through the air met his ears as he dodged a blade meant for his throat almost instinctively. Without time to strike, Mikey had taken him down with the sickly crunch of breaking bone. His sword now lay abandoned and bloodless at his feet.

It was a dead man's sword. Don kicked it away.

Twirling his nunchaku, Mike dove in for a one- two strike. His weapons met twin skulls, feeling that so familiar give under the blows as two more lay motionless. A thin trail of blood glittered in the moonlight, running like its own fragile river along the cracks in the concrete. Four had fallen, but just as quickly they were replaced like they were born from the belly of the shadows themselves.

There were almost too many. Almost.

Even in the dark, Don could see his brother's blue eyes shining from their corners. Over the sound of battle and the groans of his bo's latest victim, he heard Mike's voice carry out, strong and true, grinning still devious in the dawn of so much death and drying blood.

"I have an idea!"

A furied roar broke the air like tearing away a healing scab, letting it all bleed out onto the pavement of that war-torn roof. Raphael's hands were bound by a manriki chain, on sai clutched uselessly in his hand. The other, abandoned at his feet. His face was drawn into a sick grimace, feet planted on the rooftop as the ninja pulled him closer to the beckon of his knife's cutting blade.

He yearned with every ounce of black hate his heart possessed to cut that creature's throat right then and there. But his hand quivered on his knife's hilt. That hadn't been his Master's orders. Weaken and isolate them only. The others would do the rest.

But still, his hate grew blacker glaring into that creature's venom eyes, his mouth foul and dishonorable as he struggled against the chain.

"You son of a bitch! Let go of me you stupid fuck!"

Beneath his mask, the ninja grinned as he caught the form of his kin silently creeping from the shadows, the blade of a kama drawn back to slice the creature's neck. Silently, he laughed.

The creature looked puzzled at the hesitation and turned, eye grown wide at the sight of the flashing blade, he screamed.

"Oh shit!"

But it was over in an instant. With a flash of silver, the chain was cut and the night went black and still. The glint of twin swords covered in his own blood was the last thing his living eyes would ever see.

Raphael used the severed end of the chain still bound around his wrists to strike the ninja behind him in the head. A swift kick finished the deal. It loosened and he left it abandoned on the rooftop between the two new bodies.

With his back turned, swords reeling in a constant, bloody arc, Leonardo's voice carried through.

"If you don't pay better attention, you're going to get yourself killed."

Raphael's glare narrowed as he scooped up his abandoned sai. "Fuck off Leo, I had him right where I wanted him!"

Leo snorted sarcastically, slicing into the shoulder of his next unfortunate opponent. He could see the bone glowing white under the cut. "You're welcome" he bit sharply.

But before his brother could retort, a tall, dark figure dropped down before him from the roof above. Their leader, no doubt, with matching twin katana at the ready. As always, Leo had bigger things to worry about.

Out of the corner of his eye, Donatello was flipping through the air, landing neatly on his feet on the other side of an impressive circle of ninja. In one swift movement, he swept them all off their feet, grinning proudly on the roof ledge as the ninja tumbled down over the side.

And then, quicker than a breath, a blink, a flash of a katana blade, he was down and screaming.

"Don!" he hissed through grit teeth as the leader's katana met his own, baring down on him, muscles shuddering against the force. He couldn't move, couldn't run to him. He had no other choice- he had to stay, he had to fight.

Only three ninja stood in his way.

Michelangelo was there in a heartbeat. He rested his hand on his brother's quaking shoulders, felt the sheen of sweat upon his skin that mingled with the cool night air. His face was drawn into a grimace.

"I… I don't know if I… should take it out!" he moaned, words coming in tight, pained gasps. He was grappling with something lodged in the back of his knee.

Donatello's eyes met his brother's, pleading for answers. Mike could only open and close his mouth wordlessly.

But his baby brother's face instantly paled when he saw the cylinder protruding from his flesh. It was round and clear, and filled with some sort of… _liquid._

His heart thrummed desperately in his throat.

"Take it out! Take it out! It has... stuff in it!"

Don was almost in too much pain to be puzzled. Of all places to get hit by some sort of _dart, _that would probably have to be one of the worst. As Michelangelo burst over towards the dart, Don pushed his hands away. He couldn't risk causing any further damage, even if it was filled with 'stuff.'

But the excruciating pain ripping through his entire leg was enough to tell him the worst of the damage had already been done.

Then, in a panicked silence, everything seemed to happen at once. Beneath his hands, the cylinder head of the dart dethatched and rolled its way across the pavement, sloshing "stuff" as it rolled, contained within the glass.

Don was left with blood soaked hands, eyes blurring over slightly with stinging tears of pain. He was almost certain that when the canister detached, the needle was left still buried in his flesh.

But the sound of four objects whirring through the air caught his attention.

Mikey, with his gaze still fixed on the odd little cylinder rolling along the concrete, suddenly had a dart of his own buried deep into the flesh of his bicep. His eyes were wide and stunned, silent.

From further away, they could still hear the other two finishing off the last of the ninja, Raphael grunting as he swung at his last opponent, blood tainting the steel of his sai, smeared thinly across his face, neck, and shoulders.

"Who the fuck is shooting at us!" he roared, dealing his final blow as he heard the whirr of a dart miss him by mere inches.

When the ninja was fallen, he kicked the body over to make sure it was dead. There was a streak of blackened wetness at his throat where his sai had found the flesh. He was satisfied.

But before he could even turn and belt his weapons, a sharp pain where his shoulder met his neck startled him to dropping them. His hand shot over to it instinctively, his fingers finding the odd sensation of smooth, cool glass.

"What the… ow!" he groaned, eyes scanning the rooftop angrily.

Leo was still caught up in his little duel with the 'big boss' and Don and Mike were perched over on the far edge of the roof. He could catch Mike's frantic screaming drifting on the wind. He was holding something in his hands, waving it just as frantically for all to see.

"Take it out! Take it out!" he yelped, and instinctively, Raph did just that.

He winced as it slid out of his flesh, the heat of blood trickling down from the small wound until he cradled in his hands a fragile glass syringe.

"Woah" he murmured, heart thrumming in his chest. Who would even _dare_ shoot him with something like this?

The needle was long, like the horror movie, way longer than necessary kind of long, with a lance-like razor sharp tip and a long glass cylinder filled with some kind of _liquid._

With a gasp, he let it fall onto the concrete, but the glass did not shatter. Only the liquid seemed to slosh inside, rolling across the rooftop, needle coated in his blood.

He heard Don trying to stifle a cry of pain, and failing miserably.

_Great. This is just great. _

Close by, Leo finished off the last of the ninja with a smooth arc of twin katana blade. Just one movement, and that ninja's head was lolling bodiless on the floor. Its body crumpled to its knees, a sickly rain of crimson blood pouring from its neck as it slammed without ceremony to the ground. A pool of red collected on the rooftop, reaching to his feet.

Leo stepped away, holding back the look of disgust it brought to his face- that rotten smell of spilled copper blood like living, fleshy rust. It made him cringe.

But a bursting pain almost made his knee buckle from beneath him. His eyes traced down his thigh, half expecting the sickly glisten of a cut exposed to the night air. But his hands found something different. It was cool and glass, something sharp embedded in the muscle.

His heart skipped a beat when he saw the liquid, and almost stopped when he watched it detach, lolling on the ground just like his victim's decapitated head. He winced as his fingers brushed the protruding end of the needle, grasping it delicately and drawing it out.

Blood wept from the wound, but as always, he had bigger things to worry about. He couldn't keep the image of Don crumpling to the ground from replaying over and over in his head. And now Mike and Raph were there, hunched over him, only shapes in the dark.

Despite the pain in his thigh, he trotted over to them with his heart in his throat. Something was wrong. He could hear Don's stifled moans and cries as he pushed past the other two.

"What happened?" he said breathlessly, taking in his brother's pained expression, the coating of sweat across his brow that in no way came from battle. He was clutching desperately at his knee with his eyes screwed shut, hands coated thinly in his own blood.

"Got him in the knee" Raph said curtly when Don gave no reply. "Said the needle might still be in there."

"Yeah, the top part came off and…" Mikey trailed in mid sentence when his attention caught a shape flickering from the shadows behind him. Someone was still alive on that rooftop, and it wasn't one of his brothers.

The thought of the fallen foot ninja rising from the dead made something sickly crawl around inside of him.

But Leo, Don, and Raph hadn't noticed. Sometimes, being easily distractible had its advantages.

"Uh… guys?"

When no one turned, panic started to settle in. Someone, cloaked in black like all those bodies of dead foot ninja was silently picking through the carnage where Don's dart vial had rolled. In a fleeting, startling moment, the ninja froze and stared, his black and eyeless gaze eerily penetrating. Mike could still feel his insides squirm .Eyes wide, Mike reached out and shook Leo by the shoulder as the last living ninja darted from the rooftop like a shadow, disappearing into the night.

"Leo! There's someone here! Guys, he's got the darts!"

Wordlessly, Leo turned his head, brow furrowed, but his gaze still stoic. "Let him go. We have to get Don back to the Lair."

Still gripping gingerly at his knee, Don quickly shook his head. "You need to get those vials… I… need to know what that l-liquid was" he breathed, voice shaking with every syllable.

"Forget it, Don" Raph said thoughtfully, clasping a hand on his injured brother's shoulder. "We ain't leaving you here."

With a sigh, Don didn't protest. He knew he needed those darts. He needed to know what that liquid was before one of them was poisoned or worse. But another part of him told him that if there was poison in those vials, he would have known it by now. He was in too much pain to chase after some lonely Foot ninja anyways.

He could only hope that the needle still lodged through the back of his knee would tell him what he needed to know.

"Can you walk?"

Leo was offering him a hand with a concerned expression on his face. At first, he wanted to shake his head no. The pain erupting in his knee was excruciating sitting down, never less walking on it. But admitting it would only risk Raph carrying him all the way home. He didn't think his ego could handle that.

So hesitantly, he nodded and tried his best not to cringe as his brothers hefted him painfully to his feet. By the feeling exploding in his knee, there was no doubt the needle was still lodged in there. He tried his best not to show it, gritting his teeth and leaning heavily on Raph as he hobbled gingerly across the rooftop.

He could already tell it was going to be a long night.


	2. Chapter 2: The Aftershock

Chapter 2: The Aftershock

The heat of summer night was slowly growing cold like the blackened blood of Foot ninja smeared across the rooftop. But Donatello would not yield to it. His hands shook as he tightened his grip on Raphael's carapace, willing it away. Shock was merely a mental phenomena, after all. Simply a psychological response to physical trauma that manifested itself into a biological reaction. Like cold. For a midsummer night, the air was growing far too cold.

He fought away a shiver as he did his best to block the stabbing fire of the needle wedged deep inside the back of his knee. He could feel it there, tearing through muscle with every painful step, clawing its way through fragile tendons and ligaments he knew dwelled within. The pain made his stomach churn, but he had no choice except to ignore it.

He wasn't weak. He could walk. He couldn't make his brothers vulnerable at his expense. They had to leave, now.

Leaning the best he could with his arm wrapped around his strong brother's shoulders, he took another step. He'd be fine. He'd be fine. It had turned into a bit of a mantra whirling through his head ever since he had begun this painful crawl across the rooftop. As soon as he got back to the Lair, he'd be fine.

But then again, he had his doubts.

Another determined step, and he was falling. For the third time in five minutes, Don's knee gave out from underneath him. He reached out, grappled to get a better hold of his brother's strong shoulders, and clung to him like life.

"Come on, suck it up and let me carry you," Raphael growled, hiding a wince as his brother pressed on his sore shoulder. He heaved his brother painfully to his feet once again.

Raph was starting to get annoyed, but for some reason, Don felt he had the need to keep whatever shred of pride and dignity he still had left to cling to, however small it was.

He could walk.

Something in the corner of his mind told him that if this was Leo, if Leo had been the one to have a needle blow his knee apart, he would have marched home unaided like some sort of indestructible cyborg from the Terminator movies, unflinching. But that was bogus, and Don knew it.

Still, another part of him was a hopeless romantic. A hidden, child-like part of him wanted to be that robot his mind had made his older brother become.

"We ain't even near the ledge yet," Raphael said curtly, turning his head to meet his brother's eyes.

There he could see it, beneath all that irritation lay true concern. It made Don snap back into reality for a moment, like gasping for breath emerging from under water, just long enough to feel his heart sink like a rock in the pit of his stomach and he was drowning again. He eyed the rooftop ledge wearily. In five minutes, Raph had only managed to practically _drag _him about three feet from the other side of the roof where he had fallen. There had to be at least another twenty until they would reach the dark canyon the buildings made in great divides. And then, there was the fire escape.

All the factors ran through his head at once, like staring out a speeding car window. How much longer could he keep this up before he passed out? He was already feeling a little faint, and the shivering was definitely not a good sign. How would they even get him down? He wouldn't be able to jump off to the next roof, that was for sure. But at the moment, he was even beginning to doubt his ability to climb down from that rusty old fire escape without running into serious problems.

Leo was staring at him placidly, but Don could see the concern behind it, the nervous way they flicked to scan the shadows. Mikey, who was already staring back at him from his perch on the ledge, had far less patience. He shifted his weight uneasily from foot to foot, fidgeting from the restless imaginings of his overactive mind. At the moment, it was like all the shadows had eyes. He had seen that one ninja come and steal away back into the night. He'd taken off with those vials, and the places where they once had lain were hauntingly bare.

After that, he wasn't even sure he could trust the dead that lie there. It was eerie how death could make the air so strangely quiet.

He tried not to whimper and cursed his overactive imagination, nervously fingering his nunchaku.

The quicker they got home, the better.

"Come _on _Don," he whined, shuddering dramatically for the effect. "This place is seriously giving me the creeps. We don't even know who was shooting at us!"

"Mike's right," Leonardo said wearily, eyes flicking to every ledge and void, every place that could hide a lurking Foot ninja. "We need to get back to the Lair as soon as possible. There's no telling what could have been in those vials, or who might still be watching."

The night plunged into an eerie silence as the breeze played with bandana tails.

That type of quiet… it was the harbinger of death, an omen of things that have not come to pass but may, hungry whispers of fate and things to come.

It was chilling to the very core.

That kind of silence just made Raph's skin crawl. He hadn't put much thought into the darts ever since he saw Don fall. After that, his protection instinct had him on autopilot. But now, with Leo almost whispering those haunting words in the dark, cloaked in shadow with weary, wandering eyes, it all came back to him like a crashing wave. Those vials, he remembered finding one embedded in his own flesh, Mikey's frantic cries to rip it out, the horrible look of the needle as he held it in his hands.

And now Don was acting pretty out of it, shaking and covered in cold sweat. That needle was still buried in his knee, and even though it wasn't really bleeding, that had to hurt like a bitch. He could see it in his brother's eyes when he'd pulled Don to his feet one more time.

He prayed there hadn't been any poison in those darts, but he pushed that thought aside as quickly as he could, stifling a shudder.

Don wobbled again beneath his grasp. Raph fought to keep him standing, trying his best to keep his mind blank from all those creeping ghosts of possibility and fate.

Leonardo's eyes only betrayed more concern, more worry, haunted. He trained his gaze on his injured brother, that same look of concern Don had seen before. "Maybe you should let him carry you," he urged softly, in that I-speak-nothing-but-indisputable-reason tone of voice that made Don groan the very few times he had allowed himself to lose track of reality.

But logic won him over in the long run. There was no way they would make it back to the Lair before sunrise if he kept this up, and if he was going to be that stubborn about it, his brothers would probably end up dragging his unconscious body through the sewer sludge in the end. Not to mention whoever might be watching from the dark, Shredder's demon black predators stalking in the shadows.

"Fine," Don muttered flatly, already preparing himself for the barrage of teasing his brothers were sure to shower him with later, but figuring it better to just suck it up and take it instead of forcing his family to wait around for him like sitting ducks for the sake of his ego.

But as soon as Raph slung him up over his shoulder like a damsel in distress, Mikey was there in a second.

Don sighed. Sometimes, life was just too predictable.

"So how's the weather up there, Donny boy?" Mikey grinned, patting his brother on the head like some sort of miserable puppy dog.

From his new, far less dignified vantage point, Donatello groaned. Not only was Raph nonchalantly bumping his injured knee as he tried to get a better grip, he was also about to be completely and utterly humiliated. Mikey's bad jokes were just the icing on the proverbial cake.

"Stuff it, Mike, show some tact for once," Raphael snapped. His patience was clearly running thin.

Somewhere in the shadows by the ledge of the rooftop, Leo gave a sarcastic snort. Raphael wasn't exactly one to be discussing issues of tact. Luckily it earned him only an especially vicious glare for now.

"So are we gunna do this or we just gunna stand here and wait for them to start shooting at us again?" Raph growled, sounding slightly more irritated than before as he shifted under his brother's weight. Don was easily the lightest out of the four of them, but he was still no picnic to carry, not to mention he really didn't want another needle full of Foot Ninja Mystery Juice stuck in him again.

"Please, just get this over with," Don groaned. He knew complaining would only make it worse, but it did help distract himself from the pain for a moment.

"Oh come on, Donny," Mikey grinned as they neared the ledge, "Raphie did it for you last time, when that Foot ninja bopped you over the head a month ago. You guys should really think of getting a room. All this touchy-feely stuff is making me nauseous."

Donatello rolled his eyes, glad his brothers couldn't see the embarrassed flush creeping across his skin in the dark. Yet for some reason, he decided to humor him. "This is different, Mikey. At least I wasn't _conscious _then."

"I could fix that for ya," Mikey jested, playfully flicking his nunchaku through the air as he swung down onto the first landing on the fire escape.

"Just keep talkin', Mike," Raphael growled wickedly "see how many broken bones it'll earn you when we get back to the Lair."

Mikey suddenly looked deflated, but it really was only a mock. He let his nunchaku fall to his side and croaked in the most miserable voice he could muster, "I was just trying to help."

Leo had already grown tired of the game. "Mike, stop," he said coolly, ignoring the childish gestures his little brother was now throwing his direction as he started making his way down the fire escape. He was just trying to lighten the mood. Leo couldn't blame him for that. At least ignoring Mikey for a time would quiet him for at least a little while. Raph's retorts usually just triggered more.

"You sure you can carry him down?" Leo's voice called up from the dark.

"I can manage. Like Mike said, did it last time."

Leo nodded. "Mikey and I are going to stand guard in front of the alleyway. Just call if you get into trouble."

Raphael rolled his eyes, deciding for the second time that night to hold his tongue as he started his long journey down the ancient rusty ladder. That first landing still seemed so far away, but he could manage- he had to.

Needing to be carried was embarrassing, he had to give his brother that much. It made you look weaker than you actually were, far less invincible than you had fooled yourself into thinking you were. The life they led meant that each one of them got injured badly enough to be carried back home every once in a while. But luckily, all those times his brothers had to drag his sorry ass back home, he'd either been unconscious, or in some cases, wasted.

Still, Raph understood. If he'd been awake all those countless times, he wouldn't be able to stand the humiliation. That's why he didn't try to speak as he carefully made his way down the creaking iron ladder. He knew that sometime, the day would come when he'd be in Don's position, and he could only pray his brothers would do the same.

But then again, halfway down the ladder rungs to the second metal landing, Don's shivers quickly turned to quaking tremors, then passed as soon as they had come.

"You cold, Donny?" he said quietly, feeling the relief of the solid landing grate there beneath his feet.

Only three more stories to go.

Somewhere near his ear, Don's teeth chattered, and he shuddered again, more subtly than before.

"Yeah," he murmured weakly, but Raph could hear him cracking a nervous smile in spite of himself.

"You do know it's like eighty five degrees out here, right? I'm still sweating like crazy after that fight."

Don stayed silent. He could offer no response.

Three more rungs downward and they were nearing the last of the landings. The cracked, trash-strewn pavement of the alleyway appeared though the cloak of misty dark. By then, Raph had gathered enough courage to ask the questions that kept burning through his mind, as sharp as any needle he had ever seen or felt.

"So the things were poisoned, weren't they?" he asked grimly, never stopping the decent.

Don pondered for a moment. The air was creeping and ugly, felt like death.

"No," he answered softly, voice slightly stronger than before. Yet still, Raph could tell he was trying his best to stifle those shivers. "It doesn't prove anything. If they were poisoned, it would have worked fast, and it would have affected all of us. It just wouldn't make sense any other way."

Too bad things don't always make perfect sense, especially when dealing with the Foot, but Don forced that thought out of his mind for now.

Still, he was terrified. They all were.

His voice trailed as Raph hopped off the last rung of the ladder, a good six foot drop, landing somewhat silently on the pavement below. But even in its silence, the impact was jarring enough to bump Don's knee against his brother's plastron.

"But I still need to have Leo take this needle out of me," he said with a wince "if all those vials are gone, then it's the only thing I have left to analyze."

"Me?" Leonardo asked quickly as he materialized from the hazy shadows by the mouth of the alleyway with Mikey in tow, looking even more uneasy than before. "Why me, I mean why not call April?" Plucking his Shell Cell from his belt, he flipped it open, bathing the alleyway in an eerie glow.

But before Leo could finish dialing the number, Raph had helped Don to stand unsteadily on his feet again, just in time for the injured turtle to flip his brother's phone shut in his hands, cutting out the light.

"No, Leo, call her if you want, but I need to analyze this needle as soon as possible, before any of us start developing symptoms and…"

There was a tense pause, a sharp intake of breath.

"Like you said, there's no telling what kind of liquid was in those syringes, and I'm not willing to take a chance. If we wait for April, she won't get here fast enough. I know how you feel about needles but…"

Donatello's eyes were pleading; Leo fought the urge to look away.

There were many things that Leonardo thought himself skilled at. He was formidable with the katana, a star student in the dojo, a fair leader and level headed decision maker, but playing doctor was most definitely not his strong point. He could clean a cut, wrap a wound, even suture without much difficulty as long as he concentrated hard enough on keeping himself from fainting, but when the threat of permanent damage was involved, it only made his palms sweat.

There was a pause as he swallowed down the nervous lump forming in his throat. He hated needles. Everyone knew he hated needles, but if waiting for April was out of the question, neither Mike nor Raph had the patience for it. Mike was already scared out of his wits, and even though Raph had been keeping his emotions in check thus far, there was no guaranteeing how long that would last.

It had to be him.

Thankfully, the nervous silence was quickly broken by Mikey prying off the sewer grate by their feet and sliding in.

"You guys coming or what?" His voice echoed hollow from below.

With a downward glance, Leo took that as a good enough excuse for breaking the tension, and jumped down into the hole, landing with a quiet splash several feet below the alley.

They must have broken open a hydrant for the children to play in on the street nearby that day.

All the other sewer tunnels were parched from the drought and heat.

Raphael helped Don make his way down the ladder, and Leo let him lean on him for a while.

"You feel up to walking?"

Don only leaned on him heavily and supplied him a silent nod. His skin was cold to the touch, and that made Leo's stomach twist with worry. Maybe those syringes were filled with some kind of poison. He felt fine. Raph was massaging his shoulder with a grimace, but looked no worse for wear. Mikey only looked uncertain and afraid, though still healthy. But Don wasn't looking exactly one hundred percent at the moment.

"You sure you're feeling ok?" he asked, as soon as he saw his brother's eyes turning glazed. Within seconds, Dons knee gave out from under him again, letting a pained cry be his only answer as it rang through the sewer tunnels.

"Mikey, quick, grab his other side," he said quickly, trying not to let his brother fall face first into the ankle-deep layer of sludge the day's street hydrant oasis had become. "Raph, call April. Now!"

"I'm ok. I'm ok," Don moaned as Mike lifted him back up from his half-slouch in the mud before he could bowl Leo over sideways.

"You sure don't look ok, bro," Mikey said, voice laden with concern as he steadied Don the best he could.

"It's just my knee," he gasped, face contorted into a wince, "no poison, not yet. It has to be a ligament tear. It keeps giving out and… oh, it hurts like shell!" he moaned, trying to blink away the painful tears stinging in his eyes.

"Come on, bro, we're almost home" Mikey urged, taking another step.

Raph came trudging up the tunnel from behind.

"I got a hold of April; she went to see her mom in Brooklyn for the day. Says she can make it here in less than an hour."

"We don't have that kind of time!" Mikey yelled frantically, his blue eyes betraying every drop of fear that lingered behind them. But quickly, it turned to despair. "What if…"

"It's not poison." Don swallowed, shutting his eyes, taking in three steady breaths. "It can't be. But still… I need to run those tests. Now. That's why I need you, Leo."

Now Leo was certain. There was no avoiding this.

"Okay Don, I'll do it, but only if you can guide me through. I didn't mean to sound so unsure before but, it's just that, up on that roof you said not to take it out because it could cause more damage. I just thought April could do a better job. But you're right. If there was poison in those darts, we need to know about it as quickly as possible."

Silently, Donatello nodded. They all knew the real reason why, but no one dared to say it. Fear had them in its clutches now, and the walls of the sewers spoke whispers like ghosts, like fate, like death and silence.

* * *

When they reached the Lair, Don was exhausted. All he wanted to do was sit down and sleep for maybe a decade or two. The sensation in his knee was far from only pain, it felt like the bones were sliding to one side, like it could give out on him again at any striking breeze. And it did, five more times before they had managed to drag him onto the kitchen table, lying him face down on his plastron as he had instructed, waiting for the water to boil and for Leo to get a hold of himself.

Getting off his feet was a relief, but it was tainted with so many unpleasant things. Not only did the needle send torrents of fire ripping up and down his entire leg, but it seemed like the air itself was made of tension. All of it was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Leo stood there, watching the stove as the water warmed, a collection of surgical instruments ready for sterilization. Their points gleamed at him through the water beneath the lazy curls of steam as he fought to keep his hands from shaking. He sighed.

Mike seemed to be having a hard time standing still. He was pacing the length of the kitchen, hands drawn subconsciously to his nunchaku as if he could fend off the demons of the poison with his weapons.

"Mike! Will you stop it? You're making me nervous," Raphael growled from where he leaned against the kitchen wall. He too, had his hands clamped to the pommels of his sai without a second thought about their uselessness.

Mike stopped in his tracks, eyes gleaming with nervous terror. He threw up his hands in frustration. "I'm making you nervous? _Me_, really? Because the last time I checked all of us could be poisoned from Shredder's unnecessarily long needles of doom and we could have like, ten more seconds to live. So if _I'm _making you nervous, you've really got to sort out your priorities, dude."

Raphael only grunted when Mikey started pacing the kitchen again. He just wasn't in the mood to argue, which was a really strange sensation.

After a few minutes, Mikey got bored of pacing and pulled up a chair at the table by Don's head.

"How you doing, bro?"

Don had his eyes closed, but opened them to see his brother. He was still shivering, but much less than before. "Been worse," he breathed. "But I know I'll feel a whole lot better about this after it's out and analyzed."

Gravely, Mike nodded as Leo dumped the pot of steaming water into the sink, the warm mist of steam curling up to greet him.

"They're clean" Leo said, plucking the steaming hot metal from the pot and placing them neatly on a towel.

"You ready?" Mike asked, giving his brother a weak smile as he doused a swab in antiseptic.

Don returned it the best he could. "I can hold your hand if you want," he half-laughed, his smile growing wider and more steady.

Don winced at the sting of antiseptic, but chuckled in spite of himself, turning his head as he spoke. "Just keep Leo from fainting, and I'll be fine. A better question would be if Leo is ready."

Leonardo did look a little pale already, seeing Mike gently clean around the tiny wound, freeing it from the cakes of black clotting blood. He could see the shaft of the needle protruding from the flesh and had to swallow down a bit of rising bile. He took a deep breath and set the towel of cleaned instruments on the table beside his brother.

Another deep breath. He could do this.

"You sure you don't have any pain killers or something, Don?" He was stalling. He'd probably asked that same question about a million times by now.

Don pressed his forehead onto the table, taking in a few slow, steady breaths before answering. "Leo, you asked me that four times already. No, we simply don't have access to that kind of supplies."

Leo frowned and threw a foreboding glance at the surgical instruments gleaming back at him from the table. By now, all of them had become used to the pain of stitches without any kind of numbing agent. Even as kids, both Raph and Don had suffered through broken bones without any type of pain killers to help them. But when he was young, Leo had been careful. He never had to know such unquenchable pain until he was older, wiser, stronger.

Only twice in his life had he been injured badly enough to compare or remember. The first, that night on the rooftop at the hands of the Foot Elite. It was a night he had tried hard to keep out of his mind for years, but had earned him enough scars and the ache of the remnants of a dislocated shoulder to remind him. Luckily, he had been unconscious through most of that affair. Later, that same shoulder was impaled by a katana blade, a moment of his life that still haunted his dreams from time to time.

Seeing that tiny glinting hint of the needle's shaft impaled in his brother's knee, he couldn't help but let all that memory come flooding back to him. He knew well what a stab wound felt like, and the injury, even a year after it had healed, still ached in the night or during practice, during the most disadvantageous moments of a fight.

At least when it was new, the Utrom healers had given him pills to numb the pain, local anesthesia for the sutures. Here on earth, in the broken cesspool of the sewers beneath the streets of New York, Don would never be that lucky. All there was for him was a half-empty bottle of antiseptic, some generic drugstore gauze, and a pair of boiled steel pliers. It was almost barbaric.

How dare he even try to compare.

And that's why his hands were shaking as he reached for those metal pliers, rolled them in his fingertips, and stared into the wound.

"Leo… if you can't, I can help."

Mike, staring at him with fear filled eyes, sick with worry, betrayed so heart-achingly free.

"Ah, if he's gunna chicken out, let me do it," Raph said lowly, reaching to grab the pliers out of his hand. Leo snatched them away.

"No," he said firmly, his voice sounding much more confident to his ears than he actually felt. "I can do this."

Raph threw up his hands defensively and backed away. "Fine, fearless, keep telling yourself that. I'll just stand here to catch you when you faint like a schoolgirl."

Leo didn't dignify him with a response, only let his brother's doubts give him ever more reason not to fail. His weak stomach for these types of things was a well-known secret amongst his brothers, and Leo was starting to think that this was Don's own little way of helping him overcome his fears. Part of him was grateful for the chance for redemption, but another part of him was scared to death that he'd pass out like an idiot at the first sight of that needle.

Great, this is just great.

With a deep, slightly shuddering breath, he let his shoulders fall and reached for the bit of steel protruding from Donatello's wound.

He could do this, it was like meditating, clear your mind, focus on the task at hand. Slowly, steadily, he started pulling it out just as Don had told him. Straight through the wound, don't let it shift in any direction, slowly.

He tried his best to remember every word his brother had instructed him before he had started whimpering, which had quickly turned into an anguished roar of pain. He struggled to keep his hand steady as he jerked reflexively away. Within seconds, Mikey had latched onto Don's leg while Raph pressed his shoulders to the table.

Leo breathed, cleared his mind, focused on the task at hand…

_Just like meditating… _

_Just like meditating…_

With a sickly squelch it was out, a cascade of crimson blood oozing downward to the tip, dripping in one thick splat onto the scarred wooden table. He held up the needle, eyes wide, and felt his stomach churn when they met its rabid point.

Oh god.

Don's anguished cries had turned into pitiful moans, his face pressed to the wood, gasping for breath.

Raph was there, talking to him as softly as he could, patting Don reassuringly on the shoulder. "It's ok, bro. It's over, just breathe. You'll be fine. That's right, just like that. 'Atta boy."

Mike was there too, but he couldn't remember when he'd moved.

He was still holding that needle. His fingertips coated in his brother's blood.

Bile rising up in his throat, Leo threw the bloody needle into the kitchen sink and darted out of the room.

"Told ya he would chicken," Raph said with a sideways smile.

Mikey's face paled, edging for the kitchen door where Leo had disappeared. "M-maybe I should go after him."

"No, wait."

Mike's eyes traced up from the hand that had clamped firmly onto his shoulder. Don was sitting there, teeth grit, but eyes blazing, determination in his gaze. His knee was badly swollen and bruised in a montage of reds and purples, but he had a mission to accomplish. Nothing could stand in his way.

"We have to test the needle," he said firmly, bloodshot eyes flicking between his two remaining brothers. "Mike, wrap my knee, and wrap it tight. Then you guys have to help me walk to the lab."

"Yes sir," Raph said sarcastically, tossing Mike the white roll of gauze. Don winced as he started wrapping it. "But you even sure you can walk to the lab? I mean, you're not exactly fightin' fit, an' you kept fallin'-"

"What other choice do I have," Don interrupted through grit teeth as Mike finished his bandage job with one final tug on the gauze. "If there is poison… ugh, why am I even explaining this to you again?"

Raph's eyes narrowed, jutting a finger in Don's direction. "Hey, I wasn't arguing with ya, braniac, so cool your jets."

Don sighed and cast his eyes downward as Mike helped him off the table. He wasn't looking for a fight, but he really couldn't afford to be challenged at the moment. But he decided to say nothing, and Raphael came over to help guide him in the direction of the lab.

Still, his hands were trembling.

The smallest part of him really didn't want to know if there was something hidden in those darts he could not save his brothers from.

He only had six words to cling to, only six words running through his head with every painful second, every surge of blaring fire that brought him one step closer to sealing his brothers' fates, his desperate prayer to a faceless god.

_This isn't poison…_

_It can't be._

_

* * *

_

Like a shadow born from the blackest nights behind the very gates of hell, one lone Foot ninja scaled the sleepy concrete buildings, the silent city still below. Beneath his mask, a slight smile touched his lips. He alone had accomplished. He alone had survived.

Thirty of them had begun the mission. Thirty, now made one, tired and smeared with his dead comrades' blood, but victorious. He cradled the vials in his hands, their liquid contents lapping at the transparent walls of their crystalline prison. But those vials, they were forged from gold in his own imaginings. His Master had promised to reward him well, and he alone would taste the victory.

Soundlessly like the warm summer breeze, he followed the glow of the emblem, the seal they had seared into his skin the night of his initiation one year ago, that red insignia that burned like a beacon into the night.

Within, The Shredder was awaiting his return.

When he came upon the building, he scaled the wall into his Master's private window as he had been instructed, drawn toward his essence like a moth to a flame. Stark terror, unquenchable thirst, indescribable fascination, it tempted like a lure. He hungered for all those promises his Master had whispered to him that night burned into his memory, when they had pressed the searing iron into his willing flesh, marked forever, property of the Foot.

His heart fluttered in his chest. Tonight, he would lay claim to his reward and die a happy man.

He tapped twice upon the window pane, and his Master beckoned him in with a single wave of his pale hand, stone faced and stoic, cold fire and so strong. He pressed his black palms to the cool glass and entered, drawn to stand beneath his Master's shadow, in the presence of a god.

Eagerly, he kneeled.

"Master Shredder, the others, they-"

Shredder silenced him with a wave of his hand. The ninja gazed up quickly from his bow.

"It matters not. Do you have the vials."

His voice was flat, a command rather than a question. The ninja deepened his bow, presenting the fragile glass, playing with the firelight in the darkened room, but did not let them leave his grasp.

"Leave them here. You are dismissed."

The ninja broke his bow, peered through his mask, a wave of betrayal sweeping through his veins like poison. "But… but Master, you promised-"

"I said you are dismissed" the Shredder snapped, more sharply than before. It made the ninja flinch, yet anger flared within his eyes.

"But my reward. You-"

"Enough!"

The dying echo of the command left behind only an yawning, hollow silence, filled only with the maddened heartbeat of the lone black-clothed ninja pounding in his ears, the licking crackle of the lanterns that bathed the room in burning light. He fought to control his breathing, and pressed the vials close to his heart.

He'd been promised a reward.

He hadn't thrown his family, his job, his life away for nothing.

Only empty promises made to the naïve.

"No one challenges a direct order from The Shredder! No one!"

Again, silence. The lone ninja couldn't gather the courage to find his voice. He just listened to his heart pound, his blood flow, the fire burn.

His Master's voice was cold when he spoke again.

"You are greedy, ninja, and ungrateful for your Master's generosity. There are ways to deal with those who carry such a flaw within their hearts. There are ways to punish and to purge their souls from this blackness."

The ninja's heart sunk like a stone onto the floor. From behind, the sound of heavy footfalls, a massive arm engulfing his right shoulder. Without thinking, he dropped the vials, but they did not break. They landed with a dull clatter onto the polished wooden floor.

But the Shredder, he cared not. The Foot ninja was dragged without a sound out of the room. Hun would take care of the rest.

A small smile traced his lips as he came upon the vials, lolling listlessly upon the floor. In reality, they were made of only simple glass, caught ablaze by the bathing light of the fire. But as he reached down, and gathered them all within his hands, he held them up into the light.

In his imaginings, they could have been forged from the purest gold.

Trapped within, he could feel its pulse, feel its life, feel its promises of power and his victory held within his hands. Enclosed within, lay the final key, whispered promises of the turtles' demise.

That midsummer night, he had won the battle, but the war, his war, had only just begun.


	3. Chapter 3: Omens

_A/N: Technically, this fic is still on hiatus for a while. I just have way too many projects going at once to give it the attention it needs. But tonight, it was calling my name. I've had this half-finished for a while now, so I thought I might as well finish it up and post a rare update._

_

* * *

  
_

Chapter 3: Omens

When the door slid open to the damp sewer tunnels, the sound of grating stone that usually meant fresh air and freedom meant nothing. For now, it reminded him only of strangulation, the damp and endless darkness. But Leonardo could only stand frozen despite the summer heat, his hands trembling and his breath quick in his throat. The filtering glow from a streetlamp pouring in from some distant sewer grate caught the thin veneer of blood that glazed his fingertips. In the night, it gleamed black, winking back like sightless eyes.

He closed his eyes with a grimace and held it for just a moment, leaning his head back on the slimy wall behind him. He waited for his stomach to settle and the nervous throb of his pulse to stop deafening him. Soaking in the silence interrupted only by the echoes of his own labored breathing and the musical dripping of the wall's heavy moisture, he found the edges of his self-control. Bracing his shell against the wall, he fought back the rising tides of emotion that were lapping at the corners of his consciousness, and found something solid to hold on to.

It was an awful time to be missing his father, but he could feel the pang of longing like the twist of a knife. Master Splinter had only just gone for a few weeks, and Leo had promised him not to let his brothers even set foot outside the Lair. He had made that vow without question, bowing deeply in the comfort of the warm glow of candlelight in his master's room. He swore he knew his place and all the reasons why. He knew the dangers, knew that if anything happened, they would be left alone and helpless. It had all seemed so clear.

How quickly clarity can fade away.

He felt strained, like butter spread over too much bread.

He sighed, letting his shoulders fall and praying for the tension in his muscles to release. Finally taking control of his breathing, he waited alone for the waking dreams of bloodied needles and nameless poisons to fade into something else. But he could only replace it with guilt.

A week had come and passed, and the heat had made the sewers damp and suffocating, quickly grating on already fickle patience. They'd all gone stir-crazy after eight straight days of nothing but bad tv and training. The smell alone, like stewing fecal matter rotting just outside their door, was enough to drive anyone nuts.

But for eight days, he had ignored Raph and Mikey's constant complaints about the heat, about the smell and boredom, about all the terrible ailments that they supposedly suffered after being cooped up for so long. But after fifteen years of listening to them whine, it was more than easy to tune to a different frequency and let their words roll smoothly down his back. It was Don that had him convinced in the end. _"Only one quick run. Just a quick breath of fresh air and we'll be back home in no time. Then I promise we'll stop complaining. Right guys?" _

Coming from Don's mouth, it all seemed so harmless, sounded so rational. Just a quick breath of air, he could handle that, and Mike and Raph's fevered nods had been so tempting with promise. Peace and quiet for even a day sounded like bliss. So, he folded. So he made a dumb mistake and he was stuck here staring that poor decision straight in the face like his own reflection.

_I could have… should have waited. Master's going to be back any day now. Maybe if I'd just said no, we wouldn't be in this mess._ His eyes traced back down to the thin coat of his brother's drying blood smeared across his fingers, giving it a disgusted scowl. It had been his responsibility, his own bad judgment that landed them all here in the first place. But one way or another, he had his brother's blood on his hands. If there was poison in those vials, he'd have no one left to blame but himself.

He felt dirty, crouching down to a puddle of runoff water. Some days, in the summer heat, the fire hydrants would turn into oasis for the dark-skinned neighborhood children, leaving the parched sewer floor damp like after a fresh rain. But it tended to only add to the smothering humidity. Leo scrubbed the thin veneer of blood from his hands the best he could, ignoring the stench and his instinct's whispers to avoid it. But even that was better than the blood.

He was methodically scrubbing at his palms, his wrists, when a noise further up the sewer tunnel quickly caught his attention. He snapped his head toward the sound out of instinct and froze, ignoring the trails of rusty water snaking down his elbows. The scuff of a shoe heal, the sound of a pebble skidding across the rough concrete, footsteps, breath, a shadow on the wall.

Silently, he abandoned his god forsaken little puddle, stepping backward to let the shadows consume him. Whoever it was had quiet steps, picking their way gingerly over the cracked concrete and through the filth. They were quiet, but far from silent. He could hear their every breath, feel the vibrations of every footfall as they rang along the tunnels. The shadow poured across the ground like spilled paint near his feet, caught by that same dim lamplight trickling in from the sewer grate.

He refused to let his heart race, let his imagination win and cloud his judgment, but in a breath, it was done.

"You startled me," he said loudly with a devious grin, emerging suddenly from the clutches of the shadows into the sickly light. "Oh my god!" She squealed without a second thought, eyes flashing and her pale little hand pressed over her heart in some rendition of a dramatic pose Leo thought only existed in Master Splinter's soaps. Her emerald eyes were wide with terror, but it quickly was snuffed by a wave of relief. "Oh Leo, don't do that to me! You scared me mindless!"

Grinning, he put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Sorry, April," he apologized, unable to chase away that contagious sideways smile that cracked his normally solemn exterior. Her look of shock quickly melted to mirror his lopsided grin.

Even through all the fear and guilt, his heart felt ten pounds lighter after seeing her reaction. But still, he couldn't keep the situation from tearing at his mind. His thoughts quickly raced toward Don and his chest tightened uncomfortably, losing his hold on that crooked smile. "Thanks for coming," he said quickly, his face sobering suddenly. "Don's hurt pretty bad and…"

He couldn't stop himself. He took in a shuddering breath and she paled as he roughly gripped her shoulders. "Oh, April… it- there could have been poison in those vials…" He was shaking when he turned his face away, letting the shadows mask it. He couldn't let go. His hands were aching for something to hold.

April couldn't stop her heart from doing that uncomfortable little flutter in her chest. She'd never seen Leo break down this way before. She'd only known him long, but there was always something about him that was so collected, so mature and unbending, like stone. She'd never seen him panic, seen this type of helplessness in his eyes. It just felt… unnatural. It was moments like this that reminded her, he was only just a kid.

When he seemed to get better hold of himself, he loosened his grip and let his hands fall helplessly to his sides. April took in a shuddering breath that was meant to be much stronger, and exhaled. "What can I do?"

"We need to analyze the needle I pulled out of Don's leg. He can barely stand, but none of us knows how to do it and…" If possible, Leo's face seemed to pale even further than it already had in the failing light. He looked almost sickly. But just as quickly as it came, it passed. "We don't have time for this," he said smoothly, raising his eyes again after a clap of silence, a breath. In that instant, the walls had built up again, that hard veneer of expertly disciplined self-control she'd come to expect from him.

Squaring his shoulders, he turned his back to her, pulling back the hidden pipe that opened the Lair's brick doors without a trace of the weakness she'd seen just seconds ago. "Don said that if it was poison, we don't have much time. He needs you to run tests."

The light was almost blinding when they stepped into the shabby comfort of the Lair, the smell of damp and sewage gratefully lessening for more familiar things. April followed him wordlessly into the kitchen. "How long has it been?" She asked, trying her best to feign even a shred of the strength he could harness in times like these.

When Leo stepped through the threshold, he didn't answer. His eyes swept across the empty room, a cold feeling digging its fingers into the pit of his stomach. They had to be in the lab. How Don had convinced them to drag him there in the first place was a mystery, but he had no time to think about it now. His eyes traced to the wall clock above the kitchen sink and those cold fingers only deepened their hold. He'd been out collecting himself in the sewers for nearly ten minutes. Turning on his heels, he rushed past April in a near sprint towards the metal door of Donatello's lab. "Too long."

April didn't even have time to think about this. She'd been a full-time lab assistant at Stocktronic Industries for over a year before nearly getting killed by the very machines she'd help produce. She could build a motherboard from the ground up, hardwire robotic sensory networks, and encrypt intricate tracking programs, but poisons? Needles? This was way out of her league. After just sliding by in college biology, she'd thought she was done worrying about these kinds of things. And after nearly getting eaten alive by Stockman's Mousers, she'd been praying that reopening her father's antique shop would be enough to support a permanent sabbatical from the scientific field. But here she was, paired with four living wonders of evolutionary biology and genetics, wracking her brain for anything she could remember from her old days chained to the university Organic Chemistry lab.

She tended to suppress those memories.

Right about now, she was also beginning to regret skipping all those gym classes back in high school because Leonardo had to be at least ten paces ahead of her by the time he'd reached the lab. He barged through the door like the place was on fire. Breathlessly, she followed suit.

Donatello was pale when she met his eyes, leaning up against a huge piece of equipment like his life depended on it. "Oh, Don," she breathed, watching the relief visibly wash over his face. He broke into a weak smile.

"I'm… I'm fine," he breathed, trying to wave her off in the same way he'd been chasing his brothers away for the last ten minutes. He just couldn't risk them tampering with such delicate equipment. It was hard enough to build the thing, never less repair it. But she seemed unfazed.

"You're not fine, nimrod," Raph inserted from his perch leaning against the far wall, looking rather displeased. He threw an almost unreadable look at April. "We've been tryin' to tell him this, but he's being too damn stubborn."

Under normal circumstances, Leo would have laughed at that.

But April was instantly at his side, taking no time to notice when her motherly instincts were kicking into overdrive. She had both hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look her in the eye. "Donny, I'll handle this, I promise. I'll run the specs, but you need to go sit and put some ice on that before you pass out."

Raph and Mikey took that as their cue to collect their brother with every intention of depositing him on the couch. Don couldn't do much in the way of protesting, so he mentally chalked it up as a defeat, shrinking a little under the weight of the room's collective glares. "Just… be careful with it, okay? And leave the door open?"

"_Don. _Go sit. I'll keep the door open and anything I break, I'll replace and then some."

"Okay, _okay," _was all he could add as he was dragged not-so-gently out the door by two brothers who obviously weren't afraid to manhandle the injured. He could only attempt to hobble fast enough to keep up before they wound up dragging him across the floor.

"Wow, I guess store policy's you break it you bought it," Mike quipped, finally easing Don onto the couch with a sigh. But he was far too nervous to completely mask his worries behind that easy smile. "That's harsh, bro."

"I'd say not harsh enough. Some people still think they're above the law," he retorted, sending an accusing glare in Mike's direction. Sometimes Don wonders if his brother just pretends to be so oblivious, or he's really just that dense.

"Next thing we know, you're gunna threaten to cut our thumbs off or something.

"Not a bad idea," he laughed. But his amused smirk quickly faded into a wince as Mike helped him prop his foot up on the coffee table.

"Hurts?"

"Just a little," he shuddered, hugging himself. "Is it cold in here, or is it just me?"

Without a second thought, Mike snatched the throw off the back of the couch and covered his brother. "Just you, dude. I hope you're not gunna go into shock or something. You were pretty close back in the kitchen."

Don closed his eyes and sighed, leaning his head back into the couch cushions. Raph returned with an ice pack and sat himself down heavily on the couch beside him. After the battle and the excitement that followed, exhaustion was starting to hit them pretty hard. "Mike, if it was only shock, we'd be lucky."

"I hate this."

The whimper was enough for Don to peel his eyes back open to see the fear that had overtaken his brother's eyes. He really couldn't tell him not to worry, no matter how much he'd like to. So he replaced it with a vow and hoped it would have the same effect. "No matter what it is... I'll find a way. That's all I keep thinking to keep myself from going crazy."

"Ha," Raph snorted, "we know bein' out of the lab right now is drivin' you nuts already."

Don didn't really have a response to that. They all knew it was true. A big part of Don's habit of 'playing doctor' had a lot to do with his inability to stay idle during a time of crisis. He wasn't the type of guy to just sit around and wait for things to happen. Waiting made him twitchy, and tonight was no exception.

"So… what do we do now?" Raph asked, staring blankly at his reflection in the black television screens.

Don took a breath, trying to relax his mind the best he could. "I guess all we can do is wait."

* * *

As Raph and Mikey were getting Don settled on the couch, April started the first round of tests. At least the computer would do most of the work for her on this one, especially since Don had already prepared all the vials.

Every vial she inserted into the spec, she said a little prayer.

"That's odd," she murmured, leaning farther in to squint at the readings that had begun to flash, neon ygreen against black, across the primitive computer screen.

"What is it?"

The reply almost made her fall out of her chair. She hadn't realized Leo had stationed himself in the open doorway. But she should have expected as much. "I'm… not sure. From what I see here, all that's registering is the blood sample."

"So that means…"

"I can't be sure exactly what it means," she interrupted, snatching the pile of spec readings still warm out of the printer and scurrying out into the living room. He followed close behind. As soon as she reached the couch, she dumped the pile into Don's lap. "I don't see anything out of the ordinary, Donny. It doesn't really make any sense."

He rifled through the pages with a crease in his brow, surrounded by his brother's growing hopeful expressions. "You're… right," he said finally. This really didn't make any sense. How oddly unsettling a complete lack of toxins could be. "Either those vials contained some unnamed substance that doesn't register on the spec or… they served a different purpose altogether."

"Like what?" Leo asked.

"Like… collection. They're collecting _samples._"

The newfound wave of relief that had just washed over the room was snapped away in an instant. Leo was almost more worried by this new prospect than the idea of poison. "But what would the Foot want with our blood?"

"I'm… not sure, to tell you the truth," he frowned, flipping through the pages again. It could be a whole slew of things. Research, maybe?"

Mikey's eyes had widened spectacularly. "What if they make, like, super-evil clone versions of us or something?"

"What kinda idiot would think of that?" Raph sneered. "Plus, I don't think I want to live in a world with two of you, Mike. Evil or otherwise."

"Guys, no, this is serious," Leo chided before they could make any more of a mockery out of the grim situation. There was something about it that rocked him to the core. He just couldn't shake the hard pit of dread that had formed in the bottom of his stomach. "Whatever it is, it can't be good."


End file.
